


even so

by duets



Category: Glee
Genre: F/M, Gen, POV Female Character, Relationship Study
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-21
Updated: 2012-12-21
Packaged: 2017-11-21 20:42:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,626
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/601865
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/duets/pseuds/duets
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>jesse and rachel, through the years.</p>
            </blockquote>





	even so

_I want him eaten by a lion,_ she had said to Mr. Schue—but that had not been true. Rachel would never wish the bitterness of Jesse’s hair product on anyone. Okay, probably on Jesse himself, but _I want to see Jesse bite Jesse’s own head off while singing Dancing Through Life backwards and doing the Chimney Sweepers number from Mary Poppins wearing nothing but red spandex pants_ would probably be too hard to explain. Still, though. It would have been a nice thing to watch.

He had said, _you broke mine first_ and she had wanted to ask, later, _what heart,_ I never _saw_ it.

_I should have been enough for you_ , he had said, when it all _finished_ falling apart, and that’s where he had been wrong, wasn’t it? Even if it had all been a lie within a lie within a truth or _whatever,_ a scheme, something out of a subplot in a Shakespeare comedy, _even then._ He _of all people_ should have known better.

It half disappointed her that he had given up the role of a lifetime so easily, that he had bled so much of himself into the character that he couldn’t tell which one went where anymore.

He _looked_ at her and this was Danny Zuko staring down at Sandy in her cheerio uniform and _freaking out_ , wasn’t it—this  was him being a _jackass_ and _knowing_ it and being too much of a coward to admit it to anyone but himself.

Performance is all about sincerity, this is where Jesse got it wrong, where she _knew_ he understood he got it all wrong.

She had said, “ _Do_ it,” and this was _her_ spotlight, this was _her_ closure.

The thing about Jesse St. James that probably not even Jesse St. James knew is that he was never fit to play the _villain_.

Rachel Berry? She _adapts._

 

 

 

 

She probably imagines his disappointment when she tells him she wasn’t really singing _My Man_ to anyone in particular.

Classic Jesse St. James: Incapable of handling honesty.

 

 

 

 

They meet again when she has convinced herself that Sadie is her role to play in this life, that the band wrapped around her finger (which Finn calls _Precious,_ because of course he would) is her ticket to something _grand._

They meet and he’s pale and thinner than she had ever imagined he could get, even in those crazy fantasies she had sometimes where he starved himself to TB and then death, all in remorse of being such a _dick,_ Lady of the Camellias style. He’s even more aggressive than he was at prom or when he thought that screaming at Unique would somehow make his mistakes at coaching less noticeable.

She looks at him and something tightens in her chest, despite of herself, and she hates the feeling because it’s not _anger._

It’s _worry._

“I remember when you used to _not_ get nervous,” she says, smile tugging at her lips, eyes focused on the hand he can’t seem to tame into not combing his hair.

“Shut _up_ ,” is all Jesse has to say back and he sounds exactly like what he truly is when things get too hard: Like a petulant preteen.

She goes on, tries to make him understand somehow because she doesn’t think anyone has ever _tried_ with him, what with him being Jesse St. James and incapable of making mistakes and whatnot. Rachel knows him better because she was the one mistake he couldn’t sing away. She knows _him._

"We didn't date for that long and I don't even know how much of it was actually real _but_..." And when she finishes what she had to say, talking faster than she ever did, even when she attempted to do Sorkin in fourth grade, Jesse is smiling down at her, still pale and still _ridiculous_ but smiling in a way she has never seen him do before.

“Cocky all of a sudden,” he says. “I like it.”

And even after she has bowed down from the conversation, even after she has bellowed out Celine to _standing ovation,_ she still doesn’t quite _understand_ what his smile is supposed to _mean._

 

 

 

 

She gets into NYADA, of _course_ she does. The best role Rachel Berry was ever offered was that of Rachel Berry and she’s _nailing_ it. Only can die once, right, sir?

 

 

 

 

Three years after graduation and she gets an offer to be part of an Off-Broadway production. The Julliard undergrad says, looking down from his thick-rimmed hipster glasses, _Something Streisand_ and Rachel says yes in a blink because she has nothing better to do for Spring Break, what _ever_.

 

 

 

 

They tell her Jesse St. James is in it too and she _almost_ considers dropping out of it—until the director (a Big Retired Broadway Person With The Proper Broadway Beard and all) tells her _You were born to play Fanny Brice._

Kurt laughs about it and puts Blaine on Skype so he can laugh at it too, but Rachel has always enjoyed _deserved_ praise, sue her.

 

 

 

 

Quinn tells her one week after she got the official offer (five tickets to New York since the first time) that the thing about her and Jesse was that Rachel _kinda_ fell for a version of herself. _But with better hair._

"Mirrors are bitches _,"_ Quinn says, eyebrows raised, fingers clutching elegantly at her mocca frapuccino cup—it’s a Fabray-ism and it is kindness too, even if it has a lace of poison to it. "I mean, you know Snow White, right? Falling for a reflection was never a good thing."

Rachel doesn’t allow the silence to stretch, just laughs and nods along, lets out a _Well, at least he had good taste in clothes_ like she is supposed to, and Quinn doesn’t buy it at all, of course she doesn’t, but she lets the subject drop anyway, allows Rachel to brush it off like it doesn’t matter.

"Anyone has a better taste in clothes than you, Berry. Literally. _Anyone_."

They leave the coffee shop arm in arm, and when they get to the station Rachel makes Quinn promise to call when she gets home or _else._ Quinn laughs, bright and easy like something Rachel hasn’t heard in a long time, whispers a _Right, mom_ into Rachel’s shoulder, holds her tight like someone who knows how to let go but kind of doesn’t want to at the same time.

It hasn’t been about Rachel _and_ someone in a long time, not ever since Brody and those years of _So You Think You Can Dance_ torture disguised as _training_ that were shoved down her throat and slapped in her face until her posture became even more _practically_ perfect in every way. It hasn’t been about Rachel _&_ in a _long_ time and Kurt teases her about it sometimes, sends her worried looks over his shoulder when he thinks she isn’t paying attention. It hasn’t been about her and _somebody_ in _years_ and she is _glad,_ glad that she now has the time to hug Quinn goodbye and stand at the station waving at her train until the blonde of her friend’s hair becomes a blur against the summer wind, that she had enough time to be _allowed_ to call Quinn her friend.

It hasn’t been about Rachel&Someone in a _while_ and she is probably the only one who thinks there is nothing particularly _strange_ about that.

The worst best kept secret in the history of high school musical choirs is that Rachel Berry ( _the_ Rachel Berry now, thank you) was never particularly good at sharing the spotlight.

So she isn’t surprised that she ended up more Dusty Springfield than the Garfunkel to somebody’s Simon.

 _The_ Rachel Berry doesn’t need sidekicks. But life was never particularly kind to _Just_ Rachel.

 

 

 

Bad news travels fast, even when they’re not particularly _bad_ and so Rachel finds herself with twenty-three angry texts from Santana one morning. It is two weeks before rehearsals start and there is nothing like an ultimatum to _SHOW UP AT ONCE BERRY GOD SEE WHAT YOU’VE DONE I EVEN FORGOT ABOUT MY COMMAS YOU STUPID DUMBASS KID_ in her voicemail to give her a wake-up call.

“There was _something_ about that kid,” Santana says, lying on her gold-embroidered couch (an apartment-warming gift from Coach Sylvester—don’t ask) with concern tainting her eyebrows, like she is the one pouring sentimental diatribes at Rachel and not the other way around. Rachel worries at her bottom lip, thinks about getting up and offering some tea or whatever to Santana, so preoccupied she has somehow ended up thinking about _someone else_ before herself—but then there is a smile at the corner of Santana’s lips, “He was _way_ too schemey, and this is _me_ saying it, so. Should have known better with a boy like that, Berry.”

Santana’s parting words are, “Are you _sure_ he isn’t gay? Or Mister Schuester’s son? Brittany _may_ have had a point, you know-“

Rachel shuts her up with a bone-crushing hug and Santana makes gagging noises even as she hugs her back, whispering in disgust, “Get the hell out of my sight, Berry. You infect me with your feelings, shoo.”

 

 

 

“I’m not saying your love life is in _any_ way of import to me or anything-“

“It isn’t- _Not_ love life, I told you-“

“But there is no running away from exes, Rachel,” Mercedes continues, as if anything Rachel has to say on the matter is of absolutely no importance to her. It probably isn’t. “I mean, I get at least three serenades from Sam per _year_ and I’m pretty sure he married someone from an acapella college choir _ages_ ago. But the thing is—exes, like high school reunions and restraining orders, cannot be avoided forever.”

“Unless you kill them,” Tina adds, signaling to the waiter that it’s their table waiting for the huge batch of vegan salads. “And I wouldn’t recommend that. You have no contacts in the underworld.”

Mercedes blinks, turns to raise both her _satanically_ perfect eyebrows at her, “Girl, you know your dad isn’t _really_ some sort of vampire Darth Vader, right?”

Tina’s smile is creepier than Coach Sylvester’s rendition of _Blame it On The Alcohol._ “Says _who?_ ”

The conversation somehow goes from there to how long Mike would survive in a _Footloose_ apocalypse scenario. This is real, this is them.

 

 

 

Sadly, there _really_ isn’t any avoiding your exes when they are your co-stars, and so when Rachel walks into the theatre, there he is, sitting in the third row, looking at the stage like he had never seen it from the audience’s angle before. She walks to where he is and she isn’t sixteen and pretending to be in _epic love_ with him anymore, but there is still too much between them for her not to be a little bit anxious over this.

He doesn’t even look her way when she sits beside him.

“Rachel Berry, huh? One of my favourites.”

She snorts a bit, but plays along anyway, “Oh my god, you’re… Sorry, _who_ are you?”

He turns then, raises a hand for her to shake, “Hello, I’m Jesse St. James.”

“Nice to meet you, Jesse.”

If her smile mirrors his, if she holds on to his hand for a little too long or if his eyes reflect the excitement in hers, she doesn’t think twice about it.

 

 

 

“You’re _jealous.”_

“What?”

“I get to play Fanny Brice and—no, actually, Arnstein fits you perfectly. You know the real one wasn’t nearly as charming as Sharif, right? A born _conman,_ a _fake—“_

“Me? Jesse St. James, jealous of a _New Directioner?”_

“This isn’t high school anymore, Jesse. That’s over.”

“Not for me, it isn’t.”

She kisses him so he’ll shut up, the taste of the cheap champagne from the after party bitter in her tongue. That’s opening night. They don’t speak off-stage for three performances after that.

 

 

 

 

“Your ego is absolutely colossal.”

He looks up from the Culture section of the _Times_ he had been reading, “Oh yeah, that’s good, how’s yours?”

She sits down beside him, steals a sip from his coffee. And it’s not dramatic and not _them_ at all, but just like that, they’re in speaking terms again. The rest of the cast is, needless to say, beyond relieved.

 

 

 

 

 

They get drunk again after one particular not memorable at all performance and Rachel somehow finds herself sitting cross-legged with Jesse’s head on her lap, _her_ hand going worriedly through his hair for a change, both of them still in full costume.

“My dad said she’ll have to stay at the hospital for another three weeks, at least.”

“How long have you known this?”

He closes his eyes and smirks, and Rachel forces herself to not look away, “Too long to still be here.”

She listens to him in a way she had only listened to _herself_ before, offers her shoulders to bear a bit of his guilt, of his hurt—and for a second it crosses her mind that maybe this is what Quinn means by her being _less of a self-centered bitch these days._

“Are you thirsty?” She asks him, and he opens his eyes and just _looks_ at her.

 _This_ is growing up.

 

 

 

 

After closing night (six curtain calls—okay, _five_ ) someone from a SoHo paper asks him who his favourite living artist is and, Rachel, sitting beside him in the dressing room, can’t stop staring at his stupid _hair_ after he says, without blinking, “Rachel Berry.”

 

 

 

 

It’s a warm for February afternoon and they are walking hand in hand down some nameless park in Brooklyn, not _barefoot_ but perfect in their own way, even if he will forever have the wrong chin for a Redford role, even if she would look completely out of place with Jane Fonda’s red hair.

It’s not Off-Broadway anymore for the both of them and Rachel still isn’t sure how he managed to dig a hole into her life again, when she stopped not caring whether he left or not and started thinking about what could happen if he _stayed_.

“I love you,” he says, suddenly, stopping on his track and almost making her trip. And Rachel misses the mark, forgets to spit out her coffee all over him, forgets to jump at him and drown him in a kiss that would make Scarlett O’Hara blush.

There is no laugh track and no perfectly-on-cue extra to save her from this, from the way his eyes are _sincere_ and unclouded and _sure,_ almost as if love was a song he had memorized as a child and only now _truly_ understood.

He says _I love you,_ the same smile from years ago playing around his lips and Rachel still doesn’t understand it, not really, but he says, _I **love** _ you and she thinks he means it.

 

 

 

 

It’s Thanksgiving and his phone has been off all _weekend_ and Rachel is pretty sure he is _dead in some Upper East Side gutter or something_ and her dads look at her with their worried eyes synchronized to perfection when she excuses herself out of the table to answer her phone, an unknown number from upstate blinking at her.

“Hello?” she says, breath a little ragged because what if it’s the _police calling to say they’ve found Jesse’s corpse—_

“—is it me you’re looking for?” Jesse singsongs from the other side of the line and Rachel _almost_ hangs up on him, she’s so _angry,_ but then, of course, because this is _them:_

“Lionel Ritchie. One of my favourites.”

He laughs. She sighs and tells him to go fuck himself. And it might not be _Bohemian Rhapsody_ or getting the main in _Annie,_ but this is their own small great performance and, sometimes, that is more than enough.

 

 

 

 


End file.
